Close Reading Examples for Social Studies 1

Close Reading Examples for Social Studies 1

CLOSE READING EXAMPLES FOR SOCIAL STUDIES[1]

To become college and career ready, students must be able to read sufficiently complex texts on their own and gather evidence, knowledge, and insight from these texts. These close reading examples model how teachers can support their students as they master the kind of careful reading the Common Core State Standards require. These examples are meant to be used in all types of classrooms with ALL STUDENTS.

Each of these exemplars features a complex and rich reading along with a series of text-dependent questions meant to foster deep understanding and assist students and teachers in remaining tightly connected to the text. Each focuses on the following: a short reading of highly engaging content in which students are asked to reread passages and respond to a series of text dependent questions; vocabulary and syntax tasks which linger over noteworthy or challenging words and phrases; discussion tasks in which students are prompted to use text evidence and refine their thinking; and writing tasks that assess student understanding of the text.

The close reading method modeled in these examples is a specific method with a designed purpose. The composition of these examples coincided with deliberate and regular practice of this method over a wide range of classrooms during 2012-2013. In that time, the composition group learned many importantlessons. Without exception, teachers noted that ample time provided for students to talk with their peers about the text and the accompanying questions is paramount to the effective nature of these lessons. Because these examples include highly complex text for ALL students to access, heterogeneous grouping of students provided a safe arena for students to challenge themselves and collaboratively interrogate the text. Most importantly, teachers found that completing the method according to the steps outlined below ensured success for students of all reading abilities. On several occasions, teachers felt rushed and neglected some of the steps or assigned portions as individual work or homework. In all of these cases, student learning suffered. Based on this professional learning, these examples were designed, vetted, and modified to engage the whole class and small groups in learning to better navigate rich and complex text. The readings are all meant to be lesson features of larger units with the purpose of building a coherent body of knowledge.

The particular method of close reading that we studied in our classes has been found highly effective and can address many Common Core State Standards as well as content standards. That being said, using it with great frequency (daily or weekly) is not the intention. In this case, the quality of instruction and of readings is far more important than the quantity. We suggest implementing the close reading cycle of instruction once or twice per quarter in each content area with seminal and formative texts that provide a deep understanding of an aspect of the unit. In addition, we advocate for a balanced approach to literacy that includes intentional teaching of academic vocabulary, annotation of texts, and other research-based literacy strategies that complement the close reading method. Finally, we understand that these examples are not perfect, and as we grow in our practice, we will continue to modify and update this site. We welcome your feedback.

CLOSE READING METHODOLOGY

Reading Methodology

Students will silently read the passage in question—first independently and then following along with the text as the teacher reads aloud. This order may be reversed depending on the difficulties of a given text and the teacher’s knowledge of students’ reading abilities. What is important is to allow all students to interact with challenging text on their own as frequently and independently as possible. Students will then reread specific passages in response to a set of concise, text-dependent questions that compel them to examine the meaning and structure of the author’s writing.

Vocabulary Methodology

Most of the meanings of words in the exemplar text can be discovered by students through a careful reading of the context in which they appear. Teachers will model and reinforce how to learn vocabulary from contextual clues, and will hold students accountable for engaging in this practice. When context clues are absent and the difficult word is essential to the meaning of the text, words are defined briefly for students to the right of the text. We have left many Tier 3, content-specific words, undefined so that teachers may use their discretion in teaching,explaining, and discussing them as they are used in context.

Sentence Structure Methodology

On occasion students will encounter particularly difficult sentences to decipher. Text dependent questions are composed to deliberately engage students in the word of examining these difficult sentences to discover how they are built and how they convey meaning. Students need regular supported practice in slowing down to decipher complex sentences. It is crucial that students receive help in unpacking complex sentences and dense sections of text so that they can focus both on the precise meaning of what the author is saying as well as the author’s craft.

Discussion Methodology

Students will discuss the rich and complex text with their classmates and teacher as they answer text-dependent questions and formulate their ideas for the writing activity. The goal throughout the lesson is to foster student confidence when encountering complex text and to reinforce the skills they have acquired regarding how to build and extend their understanding of a text. A cooperative model using informal discussion with peers promotes this confidence. Returning to the text for evidence in the discussions provides students yet another encounter with the text, helping them develop the habits of mind necessary for reading complex text. Discussion of the text and the questions is equal to rereading in its pedagogical importance.

Writing Methodology

It is essential that students engage in writing about the text as a culminating activity. The assignment in these examples forces students to reach back yet again into the text to provide evidence for a position. Student writing can vary in length, with the expectation that all students are learning and practicing the skill of writing with textual evidence. Teachers might afford students the opportunity to revise their papers after participating in classroom discussion or receiving teacher feedback, allowing them to refashion both their understanding of the text and their expression of that understanding.

Outline of Close Reading Steps

Time needed for the various examples on this site ranges from 2-5 days of instruction, depending on the length of class time each day.

  1. The teacher introduces the document without providing a great deal of background knowledge. This is a cold read, and the teacher should be aware that students will often encounter texts for which there is no one available to provide the context and a narrative of the text’s importance or critical attributes. Because these readings will likely be completed in the midst of a unit of study, students will come with a certain amount of background, but the teacher should refrain from providing a parallel narrative from which the students can use details to answer questions rather than honing in on the text itself.
  2. To support the historical thinking skill of sourcing a text, the teacher asks students to note the title, date, and author. The teacher points out that the line numbers will increase opportunities for discussion by allowing the whole class to attend to specific lines of text.
  3. Students silently read their own copy of the document. Note: Due to the varying reading abilities and learning styles of students, the teacher may need to end this silent reading time before every single student has completed the reading. Because students will hear it read aloud and reread the document many times, the necessity of maintaining classroom flow outweighs the need to ensure that all students have read the entire document.
  4. The teacher demonstrates fluency by reading the document aloud to the class as students follow along. Steps 3 & 4 may be reversed based on teacher knowledge of student needs.
  5. The teacher reveals to the students only one text-dependent question at a time (rather than handing out a worksheet with questions). This could be accomplished through a smart or promethean board, an overhead projector, an ELMO, or chart paper. This focus on a single question promotes discussion.
  6. The teacher asks students search the document for evidence to provide for an answer. Some questions refer to specific areas of the text for students to reread, while others allow students to scan larger areas of the text. In small peer groups, students discuss their evidence citing specific line numbers in order to orient everyone to their place in the text. The time discussing the text in small groups should remain productive. Offering students too much time may cause them to wander from the text. Keep the pace of the class flowing.
  7. Then, the teacher solicits multiple answers from various groups in the class. During the whole group answer session for each question, multiple responses are expected. Each question provides opportunities to find answers in different words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs throughout the text. The teacher should probe students so they will provide sufficient support and meaningful evidence for each answer. We suggest that as students provide textual evidence, the teacher models annotation of the document, so that all students learn how to mark up the text, and so that all students are prepared for the culminating writing assessment.
  8. All questions and answers should remain tied to the text itself. The questions and answers are intended to build knowledge over the course of the reading.
  9. The reading is followed by a writing assignment. Students demonstrate a deep and nuanced understanding of the text using evidence in their writing. This allows the teacher to assess for individual understanding and formatively diagnose the literacy gains and further needs of students.
  10. TIP: Because rereading is of fundamental importance in accessing highly complex texts, one very effective way to reach struggling readers is to allow them access to the text ahead of time (especially with teacher support). However, we suggest that all students in the class encounter the questions on the text for the first time together, as the method provides for heterogeneous groups to tackle the difficult aspects of the text in a low-stakes and cooperative manner. In our experience, even struggling readers perform well with this method, as they can find evidence directly in the text rather than relying upon a wealth of prior knowledge and experiences.

Griswold v Connecticut

Excerpted from the Opinion Authored by Justice Douglas

June 7, 1965

Appellant Griswold is Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Appellant Buxton is a licensed physician and a professor … They gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception….We think that appellants have standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married people with whom they had a professional relationship.

…The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights.

…The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach… Without those peripheral rights, the specific rights would be less secure.

In NAACP v. Alabama, we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. …In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion….

…The right of "association," like the right of belief, is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion, and, while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment, its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful.

…specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner, is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause, enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, as protection against all governmental invasions "of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." We recently referred in Mapp v. Ohio, to the Fourth Amendment as creating a "right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people."

…The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives, rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle…that a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.

We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights -- older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions. Reversed.

EXCERPTED FROM THE DISENT BY JUSTICE STEWART

Since 1879, Connecticut has had on its books a law which forbids the use of contraceptives by anyone. I think this is an uncommonly silly law… But we are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do.

In the course of its opinion, the Court refers to no less than six Amendments to the Constitution…. But the Court does not say which of these Amendments, if any, it thinks is infringed by this Connecticut law.

As to the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, I can find nothing in any of them to invalidate this Connecticut law… And surely, unless the solemn process of constitutional adjudication is to descend to the level of a play on words, there is not involved here any abridgment of the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. No soldier has been quartered in any house. There has been no search, and no seizure. Nobody has been compelled to be a witness against himself.

The Court also quotes the Ninth Amendment…But to say that the Ninth Amendment has anything to do with this case is to turn somersaults with history. The Ninth Amendment … was framed by James Madison and adopted by the States simply to make clear that the adoption of the Bill of Rights did not alter the plan that the Federal Government was to be a government of express and limited powers, and that all rights and powers not delegated to it were retained by the people and the individual States. Until today, no member of this Court has ever suggested that the Ninth Amendment meant anything else…

With all deference, I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court.

…it is not the function of this Court to decide cases on the basis of community standards. We are here to decide cases "agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States." It is the essence of judicial duty to subordinate our own personal views, our own ideas of what legislation is wise and what is not.

Teacher Guide

Name of Text: Griswold v. Connecticut

Grade Level: This is meant to coincide with a U.S. Government curriculum. In the state of Nevada, U.S. Government is a 12th grade course.

Text Complexity:

  • Quantitative Measurement: Fleisch-Kinkaid 11.4. / Lexile 1270L
  • Qualitative Measurements: Complex structure, high language and vocabulary demands with Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary, sophisticated themes, multiple perspectives, high knowledge of discipline specific content in U.S. government and Constitutional understanding
  • Reader & Task: Analyzing and interpreting Supreme Court cases is a cognitively demanding exercise, as this type of text is structured in a non-traditional way and makes use of history, precedent, and appeals to logic to make an argument. This type of reading is not typical in earlier grades. In addition, this particular case sets critical precedent for future Supreme Court cases that affect the lives of Americans, including young people, making it an engaging topic if students gain comprehension of the larger themes. The precedent set in this case is based on a conceptual understanding of a “penumbra of rights,” which is highly controversial and open to multiple interpretations. Students will need background knowledge in the area of American Government and Constitutional history to be able to deeply analyze this text and to complete the culminating writing activity.For this reason, this reading will fit most appropriately in a unit on the judiciary or civil rights in a U.S. Government class. However, even without background, the following lesson would permit access and surface understanding for all students.

Question Composers: Angela Orr and Andrew Yoxsimer